My Profile

Professional Background

I was born in Liverpool in 1948, and have lived near Liverpool all my life. I went to Gordonstoun School in Scotland, and then to Liverpool University, where I obtained an upper second class degree in law. Having done my Bar Finals, I joined my present set of Chambers in 1970. During the first part of my career, I did most types of common law litigation, particularly personal injury, crime and family work. During the latter part of the 1980s, I did more personal injury work, and gradually stopped doing criminal and family law. By the time I became a QC ("took silk") in 1992, my practice was mostly personal injury litigation. When I took silk, I made the decision that I would like to specialise in personal injury work, with particular emphasis on injury to the brain and spine, having become interested in that type of injury during the earlier years. I had been finding that, the more of this type of work I did, the more I enjoyed learning about the medical side of the injuries, in addition to the expertise involved in litigating them. 95% of my work now involves the brain and spine, the remainder being devoted to severe injury to other parts of the body. Because I specialise in the brain and spine, I deal with cases involving road traffic accidents, industrial accidents, leisure accidents, Army accidents (usually accidental shootings), clinical (medical) negligence, and some other types of accident. I do not hold myself out as specialising in clinical negligence, because to do so would invite cases caused by such negligence, regardless of the part of the body which has been injured, and my experience has been that my specialisation in the brain and spine (which is, of course, merely adopting the doctors' approach) suits me better, in the sense that it allows me to concentrate on those parts of the body. I practise exclusively in personal injury, and do not hold myself out as practising in any other field.

Representation

I represent claimants only; I do not represent insurance companies, or other organisations which have caused the injury in question. There is some debate about whether it is appropriate for a barrister to represent claimants only, because traditionally we have been available for either claimants or defendants, but I very much prefer my own form of specialisation. I think that injured people and their families, together with their solicitors (who are hopefully specialists in this area) are probably going to appreciate the advantages of having a barrister representing them who understands, through constant contact, the particular needs and requirements of someone who has suffered a catastrophic injury. The argument against my type of specialisation is that it does not encourage objectivity, but my own view is that one can still be objective provided one retains a sense of balance.

Brain and Spine Injuries - the Fight for Justice

After ten years of practice as a QC, specialising only in claimants' catastrophic brain and spine injuries, I decided that I would like to set down the results of seeing over 1000 catastrophically injured clients. This book is aimed mainly at those who have been injured, and their families. There is a separate button for the book in the menu on the left.

Kemp & Kemp

I was the Consultant Editor of Kemp & Kemp on The Quantum of Damages from 1995 to 2004. For those people who are not closely involved in personal injury litigation, that is commonly regarded as the bible for those involved in the assessment of compensation for injured people. The book comes in three large, loose-leaf volumes, and is constantly being up-dated.

Medical Aspects of Personal Injury Litigation

I am the joint editor (with Professor Michael Barnes and Doctor Anthony Ward) of the book Medical Aspects of Personal Injury Litigation, published by Blackwell Science (ISBN 0-632-04176-5). The book was compiled with the object of providing a clinical perspective of personal injury claims in a form suitable for lawyers. The thread running through it is rehabilitation of the injured, and it contains chapters on the value of rehabilitation, expert reports and evidence, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, whiplash injury, back pain, amputation, neurological disability in childhood, assessment of care and equipment for the severely injured, specialist housing, employment, and some other topics as well.

I have contributed a chapter to the book Brain Injury and After - Towards Improved Outcome, edited by Professor Rose and Doctor Johnson, and published by John Wiley & Sons.

I am on the editorial board of the Personal and Medical Injuries Law Letter, which is a monthly publication updating practitioners by way of articles and case reports.

Publications and Appearances

I have written extensively on personal injury topics in almost all relevant publications, for example Quantum (the Kemp and Kemp service), Personal and Medical Injuries Law Letter, the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers Newsletter, the Journal of Personal Injury Litigation, Personal Injury, Personal Injury Law and Medical Review, Solicitors Journal, The Lawyer, The Times, and other national newspapers. I am quoted moderately extensively in various Law Commission reports. Some of my articles are on our web site.

I have lectured extensively in England, Wales, Scotland and Europe on personal injury topics.

I have appeared on Channel 4 and Radio 5.

I have been used as an expert in America on English personal injury law.

I am listed in various legal directories, and in The Lawyer's surveys, as a well-known personal injury practitioner.

I am a member of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, the Personal Injury Bar Association, and the European Brain Injury Society, as well as Headway, the Spinal Injuries Association and the International Medical Society of Paraplegia.

The "Multiplier" System

As can be seen from the above, I practise full-time in personal injury litigation, and I write and lecture extensively on topics which seem to me to be important. I have found over the last ten years that I tend to be a progressive and, possibly, revolutionary lawyer, in the sense that I am very keen to see personal injury law changed for the better. When I took silk, I was able to spend time exploring the English system of calculating future loss and expense (the "multiplier" system), and as I researched that topic I formed the opinion that the law was weighted heavily against claimants. I drew much guidance from David Kemp Q.C., The founder and editor of Kemp & Kemp, and I started to write and lecture extensively on that topic, following his example of the previous 15 years or so. I would like to think that, between us, we raised the profile of multipliers so much that, in July 1998, the House of Lords finally decided the issue on the basis for which we had been arguing for many years. Although that now seems old history, it was quite hard work at the time, particularly for David Kemp, because there was such a strong insurance lobby against the idea of improving the system, and because there was very much traditional judicial resistance to change of this type. It was interesting to see how, during this process, the Court of Appeal dismissed, almost out of hand, the arguments which David Kemp and I had been putting forward, only then to be reversed by the House of Lords.

"Ring-Fencing"

There are still many outstanding issues of real importance in personal injury litigation which need to be addressed and improved. Not all of them would result in damages being increased for claimants, but that does not necessarily mean that improvement is not appropriate or possible. A major concern for insurers, and others who have to pay substantial damages to injured people, is that, once the court case is finished, the claimant can do whatever he or she likes with the award of compensation. For example, if a claimant has received £1 million to spend on future care, necessary because of severe injury, there is in fact no obligation whatsoever on the claimant actually to spend any of that sum in that way. If the claimant chooses, he or she can change their plans entirely, despite the fact that a judge has just decided that the money should and will be spent for that particular purpose. This has led to what is referred to in legal jargon as the "ring-fencing of awards": what is meant is the notion that, once a Judge has declared that a specific part of the compensation is intended for a specific purpose, that money should indeed be applied to that purpose.

Looking to the Future

I spend most of my time seeing claimants who have been injured severely, a process which I enjoy despite the severity of the injuries, because I feel that, with proper management of the litigation, we can be part of the therapeutic process of recovery and rehabilitation, with the ultimate objective of providing, through the court claim, as good a quality of life as is reasonably possible. Many of my consultations are held either in the home or the locality of the injured person, and I travel extensively in the whole of Britain, and to some extent in Europe.

Efficiency

I operate a "quality management system", and held a certificate from the British Standards Institution that my system complies with the requirements of BS EN ISO 9001: 1994. I obtained my certificate in 1994, because I felt that it should be possible for barristers to manage their professional lives as efficiently as other professionals, even though we have been portrayed (rightly in my opinion) as being inefficient. It was surprisingly difficult. My Practice Manager and I obtained the services of a consultant, and he spent almost two weeks researching our systems, improving them, and then committing them to a Quality Manual (which is available for inspection) and Quality Procedures (which contain all the fine detail of how the system operates). We found it enormously valuable, not only because it makes you scrutinise your working habits, but also because it has a built-in system of checking and auditing. My Practice Manager and I review my practice every six months, which involves looking at all aspects of the work and how it has been performed, and we carry out an internal audit every year. The audit is a serious matter, in the sense that we have to check that each of us has performed in accordance with the set procedures.

It was interesting to me that, five years after I obtained my kite-mark, the Bar Council decided that it would encourage barristers to obtain a version of the kite-mark (much less stringent, if I have understood it correctly). The Bar does now operate such a system, and my chambers have the relevant certification. I still operate my more demanding system.

Cars

Although I have spent my life working hard, I have always been mad about cars, motorbikes and lorries. I am fascinated by their design and performance. I have a Class 1 LGV (heavy goods) licence, and have passed the Institute of Advanced Motorists test on both cars and articulated lorries. I have a competition driving licence, and I race in the Historic Sports Cars series at weekends, driving old Lotuses.